Workiva Support Center

Understand blacklines

Each time you or a collaborator edits a document, a revision appears in the History panel that you can blackline. Revisions are shown when a change of content is made in the document that would affect the reader's ability to understand. By creating a blackline with two revisions, you can view and compare two different versions of your document.

The table below lists what's shown and not shown in a blackline.

Auto text won't be shown in a blackline. Some examples of auto text are:

• Page numbers
• Page number references from bookmarks or sections
• Numbered list references
• Automated table of contents
• Footnote numbering
• List numbering

Create a blackline

 

To create a blackline in Documents:

1

Hover over a revision in the History panel and click the arrow to open the menu.

2

Select Create Blackline . This automatically places the selected revision in the first box.

3

Click and drag the revision you want to compare into the second box. To include only the sections that include changes, check Only include sections with changes.

4

Click the Advanced options link and choose whether to blackline the entire document, the current section only, or selected sections.

5

Name your blackline and click Create.

You can filter revisions to view only Milestones or only starred milestones by clicking the Filter icon and then checking the Show Milestones or Show Starred boxes.

Use the Blacklines panel

Each time you create a blackline, a named copy appears in the Blacklines panel. To open the panel, click the Blacklines icon in the right panel. 

The panel includes a detailed overview of each blackline, including when it was generated and which two revisions are compared. You can add a remark by clicking the arrow next to a blackline's title and selecting Add Remark .

If you need to share a blackline outside of Workiva, you can export it as a PDF by clicking Export PDF. You can choose two options when exporting to PDF:

• All changes: Exports to a PDF, showing all of the changes inline in the document.
  
• Simplified changes with changelog: Exports to a PDF that uses indicators directly on the document to show where changes were made. The detailed changes are displayed in a separate log for each page. We recommend using this option if you want to see what the final report will look like with all of the changes made. 
  

View a blackline

You can open blacklines directly in Workiva to view changes and navigate between them.

To open a blackline:

1

Open the Blacklines panel.

2

Click the arrow next to the title and select Open .

If you generated a blackline for your entire document, purple lines in the document outline panel let you know which sections include changes.

You can move between changes by using the Previous Change and Next Change icons in the toolbar.

To simplify your view, use the Show/Hide function to show or hide Gridlines or Non-printing characters .

You can export a blackline as a PDF from this view by selecting Save PDF in the toolbar. Use the Export Options window to customize your PDF, including exporting only pages with changes.

To return to the original document, click Properties to open the Blackline Properties panel and click the open icon to open the source document.

View blacklines authorship

With blacklines, you can view who authored which content within your document. This makes collaboration and tracking changes from others easier.

To turn on authorship, open a blackline and click Show overlay in the toolbar.  You can also enable Authorship within the Blackline changes panel.

With authorship on, you can hover over content within the document that specifies who made changes.

In the Blackline changes panel, you can also view who the authors were.

Note: Blacklines authorship isn't supported on previously generated blacklines. To show authorship, create a new blackline with the same milestone and timestamp settings.

Blackline changes

On a blackline, specific indicators show where changes have been made:

A

Additions are in blue, underlined text.

B

Removals are in red text with a strike-through.

C

Blue vertical lines in the left margin let you know where there are changes in your document.

These indicators appear in both Workiva and blackline PDFs. 

Blackline view modes

In the Review tab, there are three different view modes you can toggle to view changes.

• Hide changes: Hides all changes markup. This lets you see the file as the latest revision in a clean view.
  
• Simplified changes: Hides deleted content but shows a pin in the general location. This lets you see the final view of the document while also indicating areas of changes. For highly designed documents, we recommend the Simplified changes view. This way reviewers can see what the final file will look like with the changes made.
  
• All changes: This is the default view for blacklines. You'll see deleted and added content.
  

On the right, you can open the Blackline Changes panel or click on the pins within the file. The panel only shows changes for the current section that your cursor is in.

Send a blackline for review

Sending blacklines for review lets users in your workspace view and comment on an existing blackline. When you request a review, your reviewer can open the blackline in Workiva and add comments that will appear on the source file.

From the Blacklines panel, click the arrow next to the blackline you want to send and select Send for Review .

You can also set a default view for the reviewer. When they receive the review, it'll come in one of the three view modes that you chose. The reviewer can still toggle between views unless you check the box to prevent the reviewer from changing the view.

Blackline reviews work just like normal document reviews. To learn more about sending and reviewing files, see Send for Review.